Tag: DM tools

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DM Resources Player Resources

Avoiding The Total Party Kill

The party is in the middle of combat and the plan of attack quickly falls apart. Within rounds the party finds themselves with several PCs making death saves. Things have gone from bad to worse and a total party kill is looking imminent. Options begin running through your head, do you go down swinging? Is it still possible to defeat the encounter? Is retreat the best option? If you do retreat what about your already fallen companions?

No matter the cause of a total party kill, it can have devastating consequences on your campaign or adventure session. From derailed campaigns, frustrated players and torn up character sheets every TPK is going to have it’s own ramifications. The key to avoiding these difficult situations is to avoid the total party kill in the first place.

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Dark Sun Skill Challenges

A Dark Sun Skill Challenge: Crossing The Chasm

D&D Encounter season two kicks off tonight. Unless you’ve been living under a rock then you know that season two is set in newest 4e campaign setting Dark Sun, scheduled for released later this summer. With this in mind we’re bringing you our very first encounter set in Dark Sun. And this wouldn’t be Dungeon’s Master if it the encounter was anything but a skill challenge. The following encounter is intended for use within Dark Sun, but can easily be adapted to fit any campaign world.

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DM Resources

Hey, Isn’t That My Character: Using Retired PCs As NPCs

A good NPC can make a campaign. A bad one, well bad NPCs are usually forgotten fairly quickly. With this in mind it’s in a DMs best interest to ensure that his key NPCs have detailed stories to accompany them. By providing these NPCs with quirks, strengths and weaknesses it provides the PC with more reason to interact and develop a relationship. This in turn makes it easier for the DM to move the story along, twining the PCs concerns with those of the NPC. Of course this takes a lot of work and as the PCs progress new NPCs are required, with new stories and reason to motivate the PCs.

April’s RPG Blog Carnival focus on NPCs. One way to build a very effective NPC is to use a PC that has for one reason or another retired.

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DM Resources

What Constitutes Difficult Terrain: A Look At Tactical Maps

If you are looking for inspiration when designing encounter maps may I make a recommendation?

Take a hike.

That’s right, get out into nature. Go to the source and see what things really look like. Then decide if it makes sense for a square to be difficult terrain or not? Does light foliage really grant concealment? If you really want an answer to these and other questions, take a walk through your local forest. Your eyes will be opened to a new set of possibilities and you might discover a new past time.

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DM Resources

I Took The Railroad To The Sandbox And Told A Great Story

At its core Dungeons & Dragons is a role-playing game. When you put aside all the mechanics, character classes and dice rolling the game is about the story. The story is usually narrated by the DM who explains what transpires. The DM is literally responsible for everything the PCs experience. The DM is also responsible for shaping the direction of the story. From planning encounters, designing skill challenges and writing the adventures the DM fills some pretty big shoes.

One of the most important decisions a DM makes is choosing which mode of storytelling they want to adopt for a particular campaign. Do you use existing adventures from Dungeon magazine or Living Forgotten Realms (LFR) modules? Do you create your own adventures and storyline. How much choice will you allow the PCs to have? Will you railroad the PCs down the path you want the adventure to progress in or will you allow the PCs any choice they wish and run a sandbox campaign? Why not a little bit of both?

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DM Resources

Effective Use Of Weather

I was cleaning out my dice bag the other day when I came across an old gem, the weather die. It’s been years since I’ve seen it, and probably over a decade since I’ve used it in a game. These days the only random element to the game I enjoy are when the PCs take a right turn when I was expecting a left. To me, and I know others will disagree, random encounter detract from the central story that is being told. Random weather is well, random and pointless.

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Eberron

Being Lycanthrope In Eberron

The moon is a harsh mistress. None know this more intimately than the lycanthropes of Eberron. With twelve moons, there is seldom a night when lycanthropes don’t feel the tug of their inner beast.

While 4e has changed the way lycanthropy is handled, we realized that not everyone is happy with these changes. What we wanted to consider was how would the lycanthropic transformation differ depending on which moon was full? For DMs who like handling lycanthropy as a disease that can afflict PCs and using the moon to determine the mood, we have created this resource to spice things up.

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Technology

Will The Desktop Kill The Tabletop, SurfaceScapes Thinks So

About a year ago there was a Blogger Carnival about technology in RPGs. In our submission I raised the question of whether the desktop would kill the tabletop. In recent days that prediction may have come closer to reality with arrival of SurfaceScapes. If you’ve been following some threads in the RPG Blogger Network, read the latest Kobold Quarterly or even articles in main stream media (here or here) then you’ve likely already seen this technology reviewed. Some of the reviewers have actually had the opportunity to see things in action. Of that fact, I am very jealous.

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DM Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Challenges On The Fly

What happens when your PCs make a choice that takes your adventure 180 degrees away from where you intended? Or when those same PCs kill the NPC who will provide the information they require to move onto the next step? Or when the PCs just aren’t picking up on the very obvious, to your mind, clues that you are leaving them? What do you do?

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DM Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Challenge: Tavern Treachery

It’s well known that the PCs bring vast amounts of wealth back to town after a weekend plundering the local ruins. However, the citizens of a local town are tired of catering to the needs of spoiled, holier-than-thou adventurers. The town isn’t getting rich from the adventurers and no monsters ever attack. Add on the property damage that drunken adventurers cause and something needed to be done. A plan is hatched, when the PCs return to town the locals will take advantage of their need for rest. As the PCs enjoy a meal the locals will poison their food and drink.

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